


we are not like other people

by TolkienGirl



Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s01e06 Skin, Gen, Grocery Shopping, On the run from the law, Processing Trauma, Shapeshifting, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24702901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: The thing that looked like Dean but wasn’t had said that the hate in its monstrous heart was Dean’s hate. Had said that the loneliness, the pain—the ugly things an ugly thing could feed from—were familiar.Were shared.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Vintage Winchesters: Season 1 Tags [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777720
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	we are not like other people

There is a fifty-cent sale on toothbrushes at the Hy-Vee. Sam feels like he’s scored, and then, in the seconds after that tiny rush, he realizes just how deeply the road has sunk its hooks into him.

Six weeks, is it? And he’s counting quarters out of the sagging pocket of his jeans, gloating over his haul of change like the world’s cheapest dragon.

He takes four off the shelf. Two orange for Dean; two green for him. Color-coordination is important because it lets blame be fairly placed. Dean loses toothbrushes like it’s his job—or ruins them. Sam once caught him detailing the Impala’s grille with Sam’s (purple) toothbrush.

But that was years ago.

Sam slides the rubber-wrapped elbow of the shopping basket up his forearm. Adds motor oil. Prays it’s the right brand. Dean is waiting out this round in the car. They’re two hundred miles from St. Louis, taking the long way to God knows where. Dean’s even been driving the speed limit.

 _Still_ , Sam said, in the Hy-Vee parking lot. _We don’t want to risk anyone recognizing you._

It’s weird. It’s the whole next level of weird, even in their line of work.

 _Recognize my brother, the killer._ The thing that looked like Dean but wasn’t had said that the hate in its monstrous heart was Dean’s hate. Had said that the loneliness, the pain—the ugly things an ugly thing could feed from—were familiar.

Were _shared_.

 _How well do you know your brother?_ says the voice in Sam’s head that sounds like Dean, but isn’t.

And then—

_How well does your brother know you?_

Sam breathes in through his mouth, out through his nose. Grabs a bottle of B vitamins with a plain yellow label.

Vitamins, motor oil, water bottles, four toothbrushes, a tube of Crest (not on sale), and a pack of Doublemint gum.

Dean’s morning breath still kills; that hasn’t changed.

All this for a twenty and some quarters. The Midwest has its perks. Sometimes Sam and Dean are two of them, if you count their Kansas roots.

_Mom’s dead, and she isn’t coming back._

_Jessica—_

Sam smiles at the cashier. It’s eight-thirty in the morning. She’s hungover, and doesn’t smile back.

“Thanks,” Sam says to her (like he’s say to anyone), using friendliness as a weapon against risk. “Have a good day.”

She’s blonde, too, but it’s not a stab to the heart because he can tell at once that the color isn’t real.

He has to keep keeping track of that—what is and isn’t real.

Sam loops the plastic bag over two fingers and steps out into the dawn of another day. A crow shrieks overhead; one crow, then two, then four. Numbers can change in any part of the world at any moment, by means of an unseen pattern or intent.

There were two Deans. Two Beckys. The only way to unknow _that_ , is to know more.

Sam heads for the car. His brother is waiting for him. 


End file.
